The Little Things
by BirdG
Summary: As much as Draco and Asteria adore each other, their life together hasn't been a problem-free one. These are five issues between the couple.


**Author's Notes: **This was written for the hp_fivethings fest on LJ. The request was "Draco/Asteria" and "Five Issues Between Them".**  
**

Finally, I spell it Asteria because that's how JKR spells it on the Weasley Family Tree.

* * *

**1.) His Parents**

Narcissa set down her tea cup and Asteria did the same, an uneasy silence falling over the two women.

Ever since she and Draco got engaged, she had been meeting with her future mother-in-law for monthly teas. It was Narcissa's idea and Asteria had happily accepted, taking this as proof that the woman might be warming up to her after all.

In time she would realize that she may have been a bit hasty with that assessment.

While neither of the elder Malfoys seemed to actively disliked her, Asteria knew they both had misgivings about their son marrying her. The Greengrasses had - in recent generations - produced one too many Squibs for Lucius' comfort. Draco confided in her that his father worried about the "weak-blooded" children their marriage might produce. He had thought he was warning her, softening the blow. What Draco didn't know was that Lucius had already made enough comments in front of her that she had long ago ascertained his feelings about her family.

Narcissa's problems with her were both more simple and more complex - she wasn't ready to "give up" her son and her place as mistress of Malfoy Manor. The latter she would never have to worry about; neither she nor Draco had made up their minds about when and if they would move into the Manor. More importantly, should the Manor were to ever be opened for the grand parties of the sort it once held, Asteria doubted she would be the hostess. If these little meetings had revealed anything, it was that she simply didn't have the natural grace and ease necessary for conversing with someone who didn't share her same interests.

As for the former, Asteria had no idea how or if she could ever solve that.

"The peonies look beautiful," she said, looking out at the garden. To her left was a winding row of bushes where the white flowers were growing.

"How very kind, thank you. They started blooming two weeks ago. Have you thought about the flowers you'll have at the wedding?" Draco and the wedding were the two safest topics for them to discuss as it seemed Narcissa would never tire of either.

The two women were talking about which flowers she should have in her bouquet with Narcissa strongly in favor of white gardenias (she'd had the same flowers in _her_ wedding bouquet) when Lucius arrived home. While Asteria was rather certain she did not care for Draco's father in the least, she did find the relationship between him and his wife very comforting. As soon as he entered the room, Narcissa seemed to light up from within. Though not overly demonstrative, the looks and small touches between them said enough. Sometimes it was so obvious that they had no one else on their minds but each other that Asteria felt as if she was intruding on a private moment.

She hoped that she and Draco would be the same after twenty-five years of marriage.

"Ah, Miss Greengrass, such a pleasure to have you in our home again," Lucius said in his smoothly insincere way. "Since the two of you are discussing your upcoming nuptials to Draco, I do hope you'll tell me when and how your aunt and her family will be arriving for the wedding. The security spells around the Manor are designed to keep out _certain kinds_ of people, and I will need to check so we don't have an unfortunate mishaps."

Smiling sweetly and reminding herself how very much she loved her fiancé, she told Lucius for the fifth time when they would be arriving and what the blood status was for every single person in her aunt's family.

In those moments she always promised herself she would be more accepting of whoever her children brought home.

**2.) Her Hair**

Every six months or so her husband reverted back into a thirteen-year old boy.

"Do you remember the looks on their faces when we mooned them?" Draco gasped as he and Goyle laughed over their Hogwarts antics.

After he was released from Azkaban, Greg Goyle moved to a small wizarding village in Germany to work in his uncle's brewery. There he eventually met and married a sweet-natured local witch named Gunda, who didn't speak much English but that was better than Asteria, who spoke no German. At least once or twice a year, Goyle and Draco liked to get together over a couple of pints to remember the old days and catch up on the present. While sometimes maudlin (especially when they discussed Crabbe), the two tended towards reminiscing about their favorite pranks and delighting in how horribly obnoxious they were to everyone they knew.

"...day Gryffindor was playing Hufflepuff and Potter saw us in the hall? Remember, me and Crabbe were still girls," Draco shot a glanced nervously at Asteria and she looked back in confusion, "and Potter wanted to know what we were doing with you and you called him the 'Chosen Captain'? He looked so dumb then," Goyle finished, almost giggling into his ale.

Remember something Asteria asked as calmly as she could manage, "What year was this?"

"It doesn't matter," Draco answered almost as soon as Goyle responded, "Sixth."

During her fourth year Asteria had a truly surreal argument with her sister Daphne. It was after the Gryffindor-Hufflepuff game when Daphne cornered her outside of the Ravenclaw common room and demanded to know what she and Prissy Bletchley had been doing with Draco Malfoy. He and Pansy had just broken up and while still mourning the death of her relationship, Pansy would not be happy to know her best mate's little sister was seeing her ex-boyfriend. Daphne had warned her then – as she would do again in several years – that Draco was not the kind of boy she should be dating.

Of course, what made the argument so odd was that Asteria hadn't even seen Draco that day let alone spent any time with him.

Waiting till Draco took a drink of his pint, she asked Goyle, "I'm sorry, I forgot, who was Crabbe Polyjuiced as?"

Her husband made a "hmpf!" noise that was probably meant to be a warning as he tried to swallow his ale. Goyle furrowed his brow at him before telling her, "Bletchley. I think her name was Primula, maybe? Or was it Posey..."

Glaring at her husband, she corrected Goyle. "Prissy."

"Yeah! How did you know? I don't think she was in your year."

Draco sighed.

***

"Goyle?!" she whispered waspishly once they were in the guest room they were staying in while visiting the Goyles.

"Would you prefer it were Crabbe?"

"I would prefer if neither of your friends had been inside--"

"Please don't finish that sentence."

Asteria closed her eyes for a moment, trying very hard not to think too much about what it meant that Goyle had once been Polyjuiced as her. "Why?"

Draco shrugged. "I needed an alibi for--"

"No, I mean, why me?"

"Ah." A pink tinge crept up his cheeks. She wondered if it was embarrassment, alcohol or both. "Well, Potter was snooping around a lot then and I couldn't use the little girl decoys all the time so I thought if he should see me with someone around my age, they should be pretty."

Despite carefully schooling his feature into an almost earnest expression, something in the ever-so-slight curve of his mouth and the glint in his eyes gave him away.

Asteria folded her arms. "You'll have to do better than that."

"Come here and I will," he said softly, pulling her towards the bed.

**3.) Her Favorite Team**

"Must you poison our unborn child with your fanatical beliefs?"

Asteria frowned at him but he didn't notice, his gaze was fixed on her clothing. She wasn't wearing a t-shirt or robes emblazoned with the team's name or logo, just a simple dress. A simple dress that happened to be bright-Chudley-Cannons-orange.

She rested a hand on her heavily-pregnant belly and the movement caused Draco to look up at her face. "You look like a pumpkin that's sprouted limbs."

"You're just in a strop because the Cannons will be competing in the League Cup and the Tornadoes won't."

Draco scowled at this but didn't argue. How could he? It was the truth. As a long-time supporter of the team not-so-affectionately known as the "evil empire" for their ability to outbid other teams for the best players and dominate the League Cup for it, he had been shocked when they lost to the Cannons this year.

Meanwhile, Asteria was over the moon. She'd been a supporter of the Cannons since she was a girl; some of her best memories of her dad were of attending matches with him. The last match she had attended was over eight years ago for her fifteenth birthday. It had just been the two of them since neither her mum nor her sister were Quidditch fans.

He was killed a few months after that and she hadn't found anyone else since who was interested enough in either the Cannons or Quidditch to go to a match with her.

Until now.

She slid her arm into his and nudged him towards the direction of their private box. "C'mon, we don't want to be late for the start of the match."

"Yes, what a shame that would be," Draco drawled.

***

Hands clenched into fists, she sat on the edge of her seat, eyes fixed on the Seekers as they chased each other around the pitch in pursuit of the Snitch.

"Oh, _come on_," she muttered as the Kestrels' Seeker gained on Tinker. Turning her head as she watched the two make a sharp turn on their brooms, she caught sight of Draco watching her with a sardonic smile.

"You seem worried."

Asteria waved it off, rising to her feet as Tinker chased Kestrel who had overtaken him in their pursuit. "You're not flying a Bluebottle, man! Move it!"

In the same conversational tone as before, Draco continued, "It's just after hearing for _months_ and months that the Cannons were really going all the way this time, you seem a bit concerned."

She glared at him, he grinned like the Kneazle that got the cream. "Couldn't have anything to do with the Cannons being down a hundred and twenty points, could it?"

Opening her mouth, Asteria was ready to tell him to be quiet when she spotted the Snitch. Unfortunately, so did the Kestrels' Seeker, diving for it while Tinker lagged behind. Leaning over the edge of their box, she yelled, "For the love of Merlin! Move your bleeding arse, Tinker!"

A thousand similar cries rose from the stands but it was no use, the Cannons' Seeker couldn't close the distance.

_"And the Kenmare Kestrels defeat the Chudley Cannons, three-hundred-sixty to ninety!"_

Asteria dropped to her seat, feeling stupid for the tears that sprung to her eyes. As much as she wanted to blame it on hormones, she knew it had more to do with the depression that came with being a lifelong Cannons' fan.

"Pumpkin, are you crying?"

"You're touched in the head if you think you're calling me that," she muttered, wiping at her tears.

"And yet I am, pumpkin," he said with an indulgent laugh. Standing, he offered her an arm to help her to her feet. "Come on, I'll buy you some of your favorite chocolates and you can tell me how next year will definitely be the Cannons' year."

"It will," she insisted, more out of habit than conviction.

"Yes, I suppose if they play long enough, it will happen eventually," he said as they walked down the steps. "Whether we live to see it is the question."

Despite herself she laughed.

**4.) His Fear of Cars**

The car-dealing Muggle had given them an odd look when they opted to pay for the car in full, with two suitcases of their paper money. It still puzzled Asteria, how else did Muggles pay for things? And how cumbersome it must be to have to carry that much money when making a large purchase, though she supposed they might be able to transfer it from their bank account to the seller's. Suddenly, Muggle economics struck her as being a very interesting subject, something she wished she had asked her aunt about more.

Asteria was about to ask Draco what he thought about it when he spoke, taking a drag on his cigarette before announcing, "I do hope that when our son is left an orphan because of your obsession with Muggle machines, he remembers us fondly. Or me at least. Don't look at me, look at the road!"

Despite never having set foot in a car before today, Draco seemed to believe himself an expert at operating one. The entire trip he had been shouting directions as he worked his way through a pack of cigarettes. (He was currently on his sixth one.) While she knew his nerves had been rattled by the _bumpy_ start - Asteria hadn't anticipated the sleek Italian car to be so much more sensitive than the rusted "beatle" she had practiced on – they were now on a country road and hadn't passed another car in nearly an hour.

"There's no one here but us and some sheep."

Twisting in his seat, he looked out the back windows as if expecting a car to materialize alongside them. When one didn't, he seemed no more relieved, frowning at her hand on the steering wheel. "Aren't you supposed to have both hands on the wheel?"

"I can drive just as well with one as I can with two."

Draco gave a derisive snort at this and she shot him a dirty look in return.

"Eyes on the road!" he yelped.

"You know what would help? You not barking _helpful hints_ every five minutes."

Draco muttered something she didn't quite catch, having turned in his seat to fish for his packet of cigarettes that had fallen between the seat and the door. Facing another forty-five minutes like this until they arrived home, an idea hit her. If she could just get him to loosen up a bit, then maybe they could finish the rest of this trip in peace. She pulled off the road, earning a muffled sound of alarm from her husband as she did.

"What are you doing?" he said around his seventh cigarette. She didn't get a chance to explain what. Draco pointed at the keys. "You didn't turn it off. You should turn it off or else it could start moving on its own."

"We're on even ground, it won't start--"

"You're a car expert now?"

With a frustrated growl, she turned off the ignition and pulled the keys out. In the seat beside her, Draco visibly relaxed.

"There's a lever just under your seat, would you pull it for me."

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "_Why_?"

"So I can eject you from the car. Just do it, will you?"

Draco did as she asked, making a startled noise when his seat moved back. "What was that?"

"Just what I wanted," she said, climbing out of her seat and straddling him, skirt creeping up her thighs as she did. She pulled the cigarette from his hand, getting rid of it with a whispered _Evanesco_ before tapping her wand on the roof of the car and hiding it – along with her and Draco – with a Disillusionment Charm. That done, Asteria turned to Draco and kissed him, first on the mouth then trailing kisses along his jaw.

"I'm going to show you something else Muggles do in cars that has nothing to do with driving," she whispered in his ear as her hands moved lower.

**5.) Their Son's Girlfriend**

"Thanks to Asteria, we're going to be stuck right next to them for several hours," Draco complained loudly to Goyle. With all the noise from the spectators around them and Gunda calling after her three children, she couldn't hear the rest but judging from how Draco was frowning, she could guess what he was saying.

Scorpius had been dating Rose Weasley for nearly a year. After several discussions, Asteria and Hermione had agreed that it would be a good idea for their families to spend some time together to help Draco and Ron come to terms with the relationship. Since they, like the Weasleys and Potters, would be attending the European Quidditch Cup match, Asteria thought it would be an ideal chance for them to meet in a neutral setting. For a time, she had wondered if she was overreacting; sure there was no love lost between Draco and Ron but it wasn't as if they were negotiating a truce between two hostile armies.

"Changed? Merlin, no. Weasley's still the dim-witted thug he always was and Potter is the same self-righteous tosser he was at Hogwarts," Draco said with a world-weary sigh.

Good to know she hadn't been overreacting.

As the two men talked, Scorpius kept watching for any sign of his girlfriend or her family, all the while chattering away to his mum about his plans for his gap year.

"Rose thought it would be fun if we took a trip across Britain and the continent." Asteria smiled tightly at this. It wasn't that she disliked the girl, quite the opposite really. Rose was lively and intelligent and probably one of the best friends Scorpius had. But knowing that he would not only be away from home for several months but spending that time in the company of his girlfriend made her realize once again that her little boy wasn't a little boy any longer. "We were thinking of traveling by train - Muggle and wizard - through the continent but for our trip around Britain, I was thinking it would be fun if we drove. We could start in Ireland and work--"

"You're not driving anywhere!" Draco insisted, walking over to where they stood. "You have your Apparition License, you can use that to travel. There's no need for you to be behind the wheel of a ridiculous Muggle machine."

"Mum drives."

Her husband shot her a triumphant look as if to say, "I told you so!" For years he'd been telling her that because she had a car, Scorpius would want one, too, and would get all sorts of "absurd" ideas about Muggle inventions in his head. He often bemoaned that they were raising another Arthur Weasley.

"Yes, she does and after being in the car with her, you should know what a bad idea it is to bother with those things."

Scorpius and Draco continued like that till Asteria interrupted them by pointing to a group of gingers. "The Weasleys are here."

As she has hoped, Scorpius stopped arguing and rushed off to greet his girlfriend and as she had expected, Draco sulked. "Several hours, Asteria. Have you thought about how long several hours is?"

"You'll survive," she said, smiling as she wrapped an arm around him. "And look, Hermione Weasley is wearing those denim trousers you like so much."

Draco flushed a dull pink and she giggled. At the last Hogwarts Quidditch match she had noticed Draco checking out the other witch's arse. She had offered him her Omnioculars only to watch him grow flustered and deny having done any such thing. A few weeks later, while discussing what she wanted to do with their garden, he had _oh-so-casually_ suggested that a pair of denim trousers might be appropriate wear for such work.

(Of course, when she did buy them, she hadn't worn them for more then ten minutes before Draco got her out of them.)

Scorpius greeted Rose with a chaste kiss, shooting nervous glances at Ron both before and after. Rose being the bolder one of the pair, wrapped her arms around Scorpius and he did the same, the two seemingly content to stare into each other's eyes and ignore everyone around them.

With a note of utter defeat in his voice, Draco said, "We're going to be stuck with the Weasleys for a lifetime, aren't we?"

Asteria leaned into her husband's arms, smiling as he pulled her closer. "It looks like it, yes."


End file.
